


Symphony

by cosmic_llin



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Classical Music, Coming Out, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles finds comfort in music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symphony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarren/gifts).



**First Movement**

The Swamp was utterly quiet. Charles stuck his head through the flap that they laughably referred to as a door. Nobody was in sight. They were all at the movie, which he had declined to see. It was some cowboy picture, and he wasn’t in the least bit interested, and he especially wasn’t interested to spend the evening crammed into the mess tent in the company of two dozen unwashed enlisted men.

The phonograph was set up. Charles hunted under the bed for the secret - it was perhaps the only one of his possessions that Pierce and Hunnicut had not yet rummaged through and passed judgment on, and perhaps even that was because of its deceptive ordinariness. Just a paper bag, half a dozen records, all classical music. Nothing remarkable, nothing likely to please the plebeian tastes of his tent mates. Nothing they would even notice.

(Strictly speaking, of course, it wasn’t all classical. It was a mixture of classical, romantic, and a little baroque.)

Reverently, he opened the bag and pulled out the record that lay on top of the pile. He carefully slid away the sleeve, resisting the urge to run his fingers over the grooves that held music _in potentia_. He lay the record in place, moved the needle, held his breath - and the first strains of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor moved gently, sadly into life. He sighed deeply.

Of course, that was the moment Pierce chose to thunder into the tent. It made a perverse sort of sense.

* * *

Winchester was listening to his music again, with one of those big-eyed puppy expressions that always turned into annoyance the moment Hawkeye came in.

‘Hiya, Chuck,’ said Hawkeye, just to see the cartoonish frown.

It wasn’t that he wanted to annoy Winchester, exactly - it was just fun to get a rise out of him and Hawkeye liked the expressions he made. After all that time with only Frank to make fun of, it was exciting for a change to have someone new - someone who was a bit more of a challenge. Winchester was quick to get wound up, but he was also quick with a witty retort, and it was kind of thrilling.

This time, though, he just rolled his eyes and turned the volume up. Disappointing.

‘What’s that you’re listening to?’ Hawkeye asked. ‘Sounds sad.’

Winchester peered at him, like he was trying to work out where this joke was going, which Hawkeye didn’t think was fair. Sometimes he did have real conversations with people that didn’t involve tricks or jokes. Just not that often with Winchester.

‘It’s Tchaikovsky,’ said Winchester, not looking at him.

‘Hey, doesn’t he play for the Red Sox?’ Hawkeye said.

It was like he was possessed. Even when he tried to have a normal conversation it just came out like that, he couldn’t help himself.

‘Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky,’ said Winchester, standing up and drawing himself up to his full height, ‘was one of the greatest composers this world has ever known!’

‘Anything you can dance to?’ Hawkeye asked.

‘Certainly,’ said Winchester, ‘if you happen to be a world-class classically-trained ballet dancer. Probably not for you, though. Now kindly leave me in peace to enjoy my music.’

* * *

Pierce left, at last, and Charles let out the breath he had been holding. It was just music, and Pierce wasn’t cultured enough to appreciate its significance anyway. But listening with someone else there - especially Pierce - made him feel exposed, ashamed.

It was better when it was just him and Tchaikovsky, who understood.

 

**Second Movement**

Charles tried not to listen to the record that often - in a strange way it made him feel sadder, even while it was making him feel less alone. The plaintive bassoon, the wistful flutes... it reminded him too much of things he had hoped for in the past. Things in the present he wanted without anything so presumptuous as hope.

It wasn’t so bad as it had been, being here. He had grown accustomed to it, in a funny way. He even got on tolerably well with Hawkeye and BJ, these days. But still there was the loneliness of a different sort, the loneliness that dared not speak its name. And when it began to keep him awake at night, as it sometimes did, that was the time that he took out the special records - Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Glinka - the ones who understood. Listening to their music that seemed to reach through time to understand how he felt, it seemed as though he was not alone.

It was the Tchaikovsky he returned to most often, though - Tchaikovsky who seemed to express what needed expressing.

He was playing it, in a stolen moment of solitude, when Hawkeye came in.

‘Hey... Tchaikovsky, right?’ he said.

Charles felt caught off guard, and he knew it must show in his face.

‘Hey, don’t look so surprised,’ said Hawkeye. ‘Just because I’m an uncultured swine, doesn’t mean I don’t recognise the same piece of music when you play it more than once.’

Charles yanked the needle away and the music scratched into silence. He hoped the record was all right.

‘Hey, what was that for?’ asked Hawkeye.

Charles shrugged, trying not to let Hawkeye see that he was shaking. ‘I... suddenly I’m not in the mood to listen to that one,’ he said.

Hawkeye looked sideways at him. ‘Hope you’re not stopping on my account,’ he said.

Charles really considered it for a moment. After all, Hawkeye was an open-minded sort of fellow. Perhaps if Charles explained... but no. He already exposed himself to enough ridicule. He didn’t think he could bear for that ridicule to be tainted with disgust, not when they had begun to get along.

‘Oh, no, not at all,’ he said.

 

**Third Movement**

Hawkeye paused outside the Swamp. That tune was playing again - that Tchaikovsky thing that Charles always acted so weird about. Every time Hawkeye caught him listening to it, he acted like he’d walked in on him with a magazine like the ones Hawkeye kept in his foot locker.

Hell, it was kind of strange that that’d never happened. Guys living in a small space together - well, sometimes you walked in on... stuff. And you just acted like you hadn’t noticed and carried on with whatever you were doing and let a guy finish his business.

Maybe Charles was too classy for that sort of thing.

Hawkeye wasn’t sure what made him stop and wait outside until the music was over - especially since it was freezing and he was exhausted after a busy shift. But he loitered outside the tent until the last strings died away, counted to twenty under his breath, and only then did he push through the flap.

‘Hey, Charles,’ he said casually.

It looked like Charles had been crying but Hawkeye didn’t say anything. There was more than one thing you pretended you hadn’t noticed, around here.

  
**Fourth Movement**

There was something about a deluge of wounded that made you feel kind of drunk - the hours and hours standing in the same place, sewing people back together, the thick smell of blood, the sound of the choppers bringing more and more casualties. It made you feel as if you and the people there with you were the only ones left in the world - a bubble of humanity that could pop any second. Sometimes it made people say things that they wouldn’t say otherwise.

‘So... what is it with you and Tchaikovsky?’ Hawkeye said, during a five-minute break outside the OR. They were sitting on the ground, side by side, with theirs backs against the wall.

Charles looked up at him. ‘It’s... it makes me feel less alone,’ he said.

Hawkeye nodded slowly. ‘You know, you’re not alone here. You have friends. I know it’s not the same...’ he said.

Charles shook his head. ‘No, it’s not the same, it’s... oh God.’

And he put his head in his hands. Hawkeye stared.

‘It’s difficult to talk about,’ said Charles’ muffled voice.

‘What is?’

There was a long pause. Finally Charles looked up.

‘I feel a kinship with Tchaikovsky,’ he said, ‘because of certain... characteristics that we share. Tchaikovsky, you see, was a man with... a man who... well, he preferred the company of other men. Some of the time, anyway.’

‘Huh,’ said Hawkeye. ‘I didn’t know that. I guess you really do learn something new every day. So you’re trying to tell me that you’re... y’know...?’

If it was possible to shrug miserably, Charles was doing it.

‘Okay,’ said Hawkeye.

Charles looked sideways at him. ‘Okay?’

‘Yeah, I mean... it’s okay with me. And... thanks for telling me.’

‘I had to tell someone,’ Charles said, so quietly that Hawkeye almost missed it.

 

**Coda**

Nothing very much happened for several days. That was, nothing much except another flurry of wounded after a big push, and then several days of everyone recovering, patients and staff alike. Charles began to feel as though perhaps after all it had not been a mistake to confide in Hawkeye. It appeared that he hadn’t mentioned Charles’ ill-advised confession to anyone.

It did help to have someone know, and yet Charles felt the same sense of relief and thankfulness when he had a moment alone to put on the Tchaikovsky again. Hawkeye might accept this, but could he understand it?

With his usual obnoxiously uncanny sense of timing, Hawkeye appeared. He had evidently just been to the shower tent - he was wrapped unselfconsciously in only a towel, and his hair glistened with moisture.

‘Oh, hey - do you and Piotr Ilych want to be alone?’ he said, with a sideways grin.

Charles was lost for words for a moment.

‘Or maybe you want to be the opposite of alone?’ Hawkeye suggested. He winked invitingly.

You couldn’t really dance to it, of course. But who needed dancing?


End file.
